Parke County K-9 Kilo wins top honors at Iowa narcotics sniff off

Parke County Sheriff’s Deputy Josh Milbourn and K-9 Kilo did more than pass through a certification course in Iowa. They came home with first place in the 2026 Midwest Iowa Seminar Narcotics Sniff Off, a win that mattered because it came against a field of more than 100 canine teams.

The competition unfolded during the DLE Certification Iowa K9 Seminar in Independence, Iowa, a multi-day gathering that ran May 4-8 and centered on Patrol, Narcotics and Explosives work. The sniff-off tested teams on how quickly they could find narcotics hidden inside a building, a format that puts a premium on speed, control and the kind of handler-dog teamwork that turns a high-drive partner into a reliable working K-9.

DLE Certification describes its process as a two-part real-world test, and says its certifications are nationally recognized by U.S. state and federal courts as tests of a working canine team’s reliability. The organization, established in 2014, also uses its annual seminars and workshops to sharpen knowledge, solve problems, provide legal and tactical updates and narrow the gap between training scenarios and real deployments. That framework is part of why a first-place finish in Iowa reads like more than a trophy. It is external validation that a team can perform under pressure in a setting designed to measure practical law-enforcement readiness.

Milbourn said he has been attending these events since 2021, and said he was not expecting to win this time because the competition changes from year to year. He said more than 100 canine teams were there, most of them from Iowa, and said everything lined up for him and Kilo on this run. He also said he wants to return next year to defend the title, a sign that the win landed as both a milestone and a benchmark.

The result also fits into the longer story of Parke County’s K-9 program, which has remained an established part of the sheriff’s office’s public identity. Kilo’s first-place finish added a new chapter to that record, and this one came with a clear message: when a working dog is trained to channel raw drive into disciplined performance, the result can be a title worth bringing back to Indiana.